Hughes de Courson

Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience by William Blake

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• published: 10 Aug 2014
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Support New Wellness Living and this 'New Thought Series': https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted;_button_id=PQRGZ58MG9EDA Songs of Innocence and of Experience is an illustrated collection of poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. "Innocence" and "Experience" are definitions of consciousness that rethink Milton's existential-mythic states of "Paradise" and the "Fall." Blake's categories are modes of perception that tend to coordinate with a chronology that would become standard in Romanticism: childhood is a state of protected innocence rather than original sin, but not immune to the fallen world and its institutions. This world sometimes impinges on childhood itself, and in any event becomes known through "experience," a state of being marked by the loss of childhood vitality, by fear and inhibition, by social and political corruption, and by the manifold oppression of Church, State, and the ruling classes. The volume's "Contrary States" are sometimes signalled by patently repeated or contrasted titles: in Innocence, Infant Joy, in Experience, Infant Sorrow; in Innocence, The Lamb, in Experience, The Fly and The Tyger. The stark simplicity of poems such as The Chimney Sweeper and The Little Black Boy display Blake's acute sensibility to the realities of poverty and exploitation that accompanied the "dark satanic mills" of the Industrial Revolution. William Blake was an English painter, poet and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Although he lived in London his entire life (except for three years spent in Felpham), he produced a diverse and symbolically rich oeuvre, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God" or "human existence itself". Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and "Pre-Romantic", for its large appearance in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England (indeed, to all forms of organised religion), Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American Revolutions. Though later he rejected many of these political beliefs, he maintained an amiable relationship with the political activist Thomas Paine; he was also influenced by thinkers such as Emanuel Swedenborg. Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th-century scholar William Rossetti characterised him as a "glorious luminary", and "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors". Works by William Blake include: Illuminated books: c.1788: All Religions are One There is No Natural Religion 1789: Songs of Innocence The Book of Thel 1790–1793: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 1793–1795: Continental prophecies 1793: Visions of the Daughters of Albion America a Prophecy 1794: Europe a Prophecy The First Book of Urizen Songs of Experience 1795: The Book of Los The Song of Los The Book of Ahania c.1804–c.1811: Milton 1804–1820: Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion Non-illuminated: 1783: Poetical Sketches 1784-5: An Island in the Moon 1789: Tiriel 1791: The French Revolution 1792: A Song of Liberty 1797: The Four Zoas Illustrated by Blake: 1791: Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories from Real Life 1793: John Gay, Fables by John Gay with a Life of the Author, John Stockdale, Picadilly. 1793 1796: Gottfried August Bürger, Leonora 1797: Edward Young, Night-Thoughts 1805–1808: Robert Blair, The Grave 1808: John Milton, Paradise Lost 1819–1820: John Varley, Visionary Heads 1821: Robert John Thornton, Virgil 1823–1826: The Book of Job 1824–1827: John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (Not finished) 1825–1827: Dante, The Divine Comedy (Blake died in 1827 with work on these illustrations still unfinished. Source: Wikipedia.org